Overview

In Cunning Folk: Life in the Era of Practical Magic, historian Tabitha Stanmore will transport the reader to a time when magic was used day-to-day as a way to navigate life's challenges and to solve problems of both trivial and deadly importance. Imagine it's the year 1500 and you've lost your precious silver spoons - or perhaps your neighbour has stolen them. Or maybe your child has a fever. Or you're facing trial. Or you're looking for a lover. Or you're hoping to escape a husband... At a time when nature's inner workings were largely a mystery, people from every walk of life - kings, clergy and commonfolk - who faced problems or circumstances they were powerless to control sought the help of 'cunning folk'. These wise women and men were often renowned for their skill at healing the sick or predicting the future, fortune-telling and divination, and for their knowledge of spells and potions. Occasionally and tragically, some were condemned as witches for using their powers for ill. But this has tended to obscure the fact that the magic they practised was a normal and accepted part of daily life. In Stanmore's richly peopled and highly entertaining history, we see how this practical or 'service' magic was used and why people put their faith in it. Each of the stories in the book acts as a micro-drama of medieval and early modern life with its pre-scientific worldview, animating vividly people's intimate fears, hopes and desires, many movingly familiar, some thrillingly strange. Told with great wit and warmth, these very human encounters help us to understand why, at that time, seeking magic was not necessarily irrational at all, and also bring into view the ways in which many of us rely on magical thinking today.

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9781847927316

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Reviews

The best introduction to late medieval and early modern popular magic yet written ... Comprehensive, humane, lively, and a great read * Ronald Hutton, author of The Witch * A fascinating and intricately researched book that opens a window into another world * Tracy Borman, author of Anne Boleyn & Elizabeth I * Absolutely fascinating. Cunning Folk is a much-needed book that draws attention to a little-known but important aspect of daily life. Like all good history books, it tells us about ourselves as well as the past. It will both inform and inspire readers * Ian Mortimer, author of Medieval Horizons * This isn't just a book; it's a window on the hopes and passions and lives of Europe five centuries ago. We know the horror film version of magic - sinister friars, severed heads, murder dolls and rings with strange powers. Tabitha Stanmore adds the rich, human version, the reasons that made people seek out magic in the first place. Her fresh and fascinating account introduces the scammers and heroines who used practical magic to win back lovers, kingdoms, even lost cutlery. More remarkably, we hear the stories of the women and men who needed their help, a whole treasure house of long lost private lives * Michael Pye, author of The Edge of the World * I adore Cunning Folk. A truly fascinating and human book. * Ruth Goodman, author of The Domestic Revolution *

This is a brilliant book, written with wit and vigour, in which Tabitha Stanmore explores the pre-modern places where magic was real, offering not only practical solutions for ordinary problems but a way of feeling about the world, an emotional relationship between anxious humans, cosmic forces, and the mundane mysteries of their lives * Malcolm Gaskill, author of The Ruin of All Witches * Absolutely fascinating. Cunning Folk is a much-needed book that draws attention to a little-known but important aspect of daily life. Like all good history books, it tells us about ourselves as well as the past. It will both inform and inspire readers * Ian Mortimer, author of Medieval Horizons * The best introduction to late medieval and early modern popular magic yet written ... Comprehensive, humane, lively, and a great read * Ronald Hutton, author of The Witch * A fascinating and intricately researched book that opens a window into another world * Tracy Borman, author of Anne Boleyn & Elizabeth I * This isn't just a book: it's a window on the hopes, passions and lives of Europe five centuries ago. We know the horror film version of magic. Tabitha Stanmore - uncovering a whole treasure house of long-lost private lives - adds the rich, fresh, human version * Michael Pye, author of The Edge of the World * I adore Cunning Folk. A truly fascinating and human book * Ruth Goodman, author of The Domestic Revolution * Packed with vivid historical anecdotes, this is an intriguing insight into the magical lives of past people and the history of our own superstitions today * Marion Gibson, author of Witchcraft *

The best introduction to late medieval and early modern popular magic yet written ... Comprehensive, humane, lively, and a great read * Prof. Ronald Hutton, author of The Witch *

Absolutely fascinating. Cunning Folk is a much-needed book that draws attention to a little-known but important aspect of daily life. Like all good history books, it tells us about ourselves as well as the past. It will both inform and inspire readers * Ian Mortimer, author of Medieval Horizons * The best introduction to late medieval and early modern popular magic yet written ... Comprehensive, humane, lively, and a great read * Ronald Hutton, author of The Witch * A fascinating and intricately researched book that opens a window into another world * Tracy Borman, author of Anne Boleyn & Elizabeth I * This isn't just a book: it's a window on the hopes, passions and lives of Europe five centuries ago. We know the horror film version of magic. Tabitha Stanmore - uncovering a whole treasure house of long-lost private lives - adds the rich, fresh, human version * Michael Pye, author of The Edge of the World * I adore Cunning Folk. A truly fascinating and human book * Ruth Goodman, author of The Domestic Revolution *

Author Information

Tabitha Stanmore is a social historian of magic and witchcraft at the University of Exeter. She is part of the Leverhulme-funded Seven County Witch-Hunt Project, and her doctoral thesis was published as Love Spells and Lost Treasure: Service Magic in England from the Later Middle Ages to the Early Modern Period. She has featured on Radio 3’s Free Thinking and BBC 4’s Plague Fiction, and her writing has been published in the Conversation.

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